The way I started was by quickly reading off the names of several famous people from 18th Century America who played a role in the Revolutionary War. I tried to give a short comment on each, but wasn't able to do that for about a third of them due to my own personal lack of knowledge. I used this as an opportunity to encourage my kids to teach me about those people and help me with future classes!

Click to see a larger version.

Then, I pulled sticks and had kids come up to sign up for one famous person. They wrote their person down and began reading about them online (a mini lesson on proper search techniques can be inserted here if your students would benefit from that). Next, I explained to my students that they would be creating a poster (like the ones in the slideshow above) detailing the major accomplishments of their person that will eventually hang in our hallway for others to see. We would also be expanding our audience to the internet, so people around the world could benefit from our knowledge! The way we would do this would be a secret for now.

Click to see a larger version.

I gave my students a checklist of tasks that were required (download the whole project PDF), some that had choices, and told them that five tasks must be checked off every two weeks in order to stay on schedule. I would be checking every two weeks to make sure no one fell behind. If anyone fell behind, I would strongly encourage them to attend Homework Club (a time to work in the classroom before school, during lunch recess, and after school every day) until they got caught back up. I, of course, would be happy to help in any way necessary!

I showed them a completed poster from a previous year and stated that it was not necessarily an exemplar, but rather an example of a completed project. Their creativity and design ideas would be necessary to take their project from complete to outstanding!

Along the way, I gave class time to do everything and encouraged students to spend a little time at Homework Club to stay on track. I taught mini-lessons for each item on the poster and spent a lot of time getting my students to create banners for their hero's name and digital travel brochures (all done on Microsoft Word).

Making travel brochures on Microsoft Word.

I like this project because there is a mix of several very strict directions with little wiggle-room and several opportunities for students to be creative and artsy! By the end of the project, I want my students to know how to follow directions (which stifles creativity but prepares them for future tasks) and demonstrate a creative touch (which allows for independent thought). The deadlines keep students on track, and offers the opportunity to teach time management, prioritizing, self-regulation, etc.

Once my students finished their posters, it was time to introduce a cool tech tool that would help spread our learning across the globe: ThingLink! One of my favorite tech tools around! ThingLink allows people to take a photo and insert tags anywhere on the photo. These tags can link to new websites, pop up videos, display new photos, or give information! (Here is a video I did where I explain quite a few other ways I've used ThingLink in the classroom.)

The image above is interactive. Hover over it & click on the tags!

To start, I partnered each of my students up with sticks and had them record each other reading/explaining all the parts of their poster on our iPads. After uploading these videos to YouTube, we opened them in TubeChop and began to separate the video into its component parts (e.g. one video for the summary, one video for the poem, etc.). Next, we took a picture of our poster and imported it into ThingLink. Students added a tag for each component on their poster and linked it to its respective TubeChop video! Now, whenever anyone hovers over a part of the poster that they want to know more about, they can watch the video explaining it!

As an added bonus, we turned each of their posters into an aura (for Aurasma) and a QR code, so when anyone walks by with their cell phone or an iPad with Aurasma or a QR Code Reader on it, they can watch the entire video explaining each part of the poster!

This project was a ton of fun for my students and is a ton of fun for me! The objective above has been more than "covered" and the students have a semi-permanent digital footprint documenting their learning! In addition, we always reflect on our learning and synthesize the information at the end of an activity like this (here is one student example). So, students hopefully gained more from this activity due to the technological additions than just novelty!

To answer the question in the title of this post, I do think that this particular technology addition improved student learning and motivation. I don't back that up with data, because I won't test my students on this, but if you ask them about their Revolutionary War Hero in the coming months, I would bet they would have a lot to talk to you about!

It's also important to note that all of these projects were completed 100% in class. (One student took his home one night without permission, came back the next day with it completely done (with major parent-support) and I had him do another one without any support. We called the first one his "practice" poster.) I think it's so important that fifth graders learn that they can do these projects without an adult making every decision and being too involved. Independence has to be nurtured and that can't be done if adults interfere too greatly!

Thank you Paul for further proof that you are a cutting edge educator. I am constantly learning new and practical ways to"up" my game from you. I appreciate how you integrated Thinklink into this lesson. Your gallery of key players of the American Revolution would be a great study guide for all History students.

Matthew Barry (@MrBarry628) gave a few AMAZING suggestions on Twitter:
- How about if kids had a Handout they filled out as they went around to each poster?
- I'm gonna do same similar poster project with Gilded Age & Progressive Era people then they interview each other.
- What "power" would your hero have?... Example: Sam Adams' power=charisma
- I like to ask "what would (insert name) think of today.. i.e. What would G. Wash think of gun ownership if he saw an AK 47?

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